Key Takeaways
- Ethan Webster, an 18-year-old farm worker, was involved in the murder of his colleague, Jacob Mills Ramsay, and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
- Webster’s life sentence is set to be quashed due to new information about his mental capacity and impairment attributable to foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).
- The Court of Appeal found that Webster’s conviction was not a miscarriage of justice, but his sentence was manifestly unjust due to his youth, vulnerability, and impairment.
- Webster’s appeal against his sentence was successful, and a new sentence will be determined to replace his life imprisonment.
- The murder of Jacob Ramsay was motivated by an alleged "small" debt he had racked up with the offenders, and was carried out in a brutal and callous manner.
Introduction to the Case
The life sentence of a teen farm worker involved in the murder of his colleague is set to be quashed. Ethan Webster was 18 when he and William Mark Candy, 39, murdered Jacob Mills Ramsay by beating him, chaining him to a car by his ankle, and dragging him 1km along a gravel tanker track. They then dumped Ramsay’s body into a man-made rubbish pit at the dairy farm in Oaonui, South Taranaki, where they all worked. The July 2022 murder was motivated by an alleged "small" debt Ramsay had racked up with the offenders.
The Murder and Its Aftermath
Candy and Webster admitted murdering the 33-year-old and were sentenced to life imprisonment in the High Court at New Plymouth in March 2023. Candy was given a minimum period of imprisonment (MPI) of 17 years, while Webster received a 12-year MPI. Jodie Shannon Hughes, Candy’s then partner, was charged alongside them but was acquitted of murder at a trial and found guilty of manslaughter. She is serving a sentence of five years and six months. Ramsay’s widow, Sarah Tasker, was pregnant with their third child when he was killed.
The Appeal Against Sentence and Conviction
The Court of Appeal has released its decision, which concluded that Webster’s life sentence would be quashed once it had determined a fixed sentence to replace it. The new sentence follows information about Webster that has come to light since his sentencing. Despite his imminent success in his appeal against his sentence, the Court of Appeal found that there was no miscarriage of justice in relation to his conviction. Webster has since been diagnosed with mental impairments attributable to FASD, which has given rise to an appeal against his conviction on the grounds of intellectual disability.
The New Information and Its Impact
The assessments found that Webster met the criteria for mild intellectual disability, confirmed he had dyslexia, and led to the FASD diagnosis. This new information has been considered by the Court of Appeal in determining Webster’s appeal against his sentence. The court found that Webster’s mental impairment, attributable to FASD, was new information and materially relevant to his culpability, in addition to his youth. It also found that he was vulnerable to Candy’s influence and lacked the ability to think through for himself whether he should be doing what Candy had set up for his involvement.
The Brutal Murder and Its Circumstances
On the evening of 29 July, 2022, Ramsay was in Ōakura, about a 30-minute drive from the farm. There, he texted another farm worker asking to be picked up. When Candy got wind of the communication, he told the farm worker to continue messaging Ramsay so he could find him and confront him about the alleged money owed. Candy found Ramsay at the Ōakura cemetery and immediately punched him in the face and pushed him down a bank. As Ramsay attempted to defend himself, Candy continued to punch him and wrestled him to the ground.
The Conclusion and Next Steps
The Court of Appeal has adjourned the sentencing appeal to enable the Crown to file submissions on the appropriate determinate sentence and MPI if the life imprisonment sentence is quashed. The appeal was adjourned until February, when the final submissions were expected. The court pointed to the defence’s submission at sentencing that Webster should receive 16 years imprisonment with an MPI of eight years. However, the senior court had not received submissions from the Crown on the appropriate determinate sentence and MPI if the life imprisonment sentence was quashed. The court will now consider the new information and determine a new sentence for Webster, taking into account his youth, vulnerability, and impairment.